By Douglass Anele
Children regularly write to Santa asking for presents which, according to tradition, elves help him to manufacture in his headquarters at the North Pole.

There is a popular account of the myth of Santa Claus which avers that it was invented by the legendary Saint Nicholas, Archbishop of Myra in Asia Minor (Turkey). Probably, therefore, the appellation ‘Santa Claus’ could have originated from Sinterklaas, a corruption of the Dutch expression for ‘Saint Nicholas.’

Needless to say, there is no mention of Santa Claus in The Bible, which implies that the cheery, red-faced fabrication that goes by that name has absolutely nothing to do with the birth of Jesus. Any sincere open-minded person who investigates Christmas would come to the sobering conclusion that almost everything about the celebration is either non-Christian in origin or a distortion of what is written in The Bible.

Hence, Christmas is a bundle of hogwash during which Christians celebrate the purported saviour of humankind.

Some time in the past, church leaders tried very hard to fight against “heathen” customs in Christianity. But, as time went on, they changed their attitude and gradually condoned, and eventually embraced, those practices. That change came about because church authorities were much more interested in filling the churches with worshippers than with spreading spiritual truth and enlightenment.

The same is true today. Pentecostal pastors, especially have almost perfected the art of obtaining through false pretence and lies by teaching prosperity extravaganza and instant miracles. Churches are regularly filled to the brim with gullible “customers” who are eager to swallow completely all the deodorised highfalutin nonsense uttered by swanky-looking pastors.

Thus, it is not surprising that a celebration allegedly celebrating the birth of Jesus, a spiritual leader, has become an excuse for drunkenness and debauchery of all kinds, that supermarkets have become more popular than places of worship, that during yuletide many families sink further into debt buying presents and, finally, that many Christians confuse fantasy with reality and Santa Claus with Jesus of Nazareth.

In a word, the spiritual core of Christmas has almost been swallowed up by crass materialism. But, it is not just the spiritual essence of the occasion that is endangered – the whole concept of virgin birth of “saviour of the world” is open to question too.

For centuries, serious investigators and scholars of the New Testament have attempted to answer the deceptively simple question: was there, in fact, a human being called Jesus, as described in the gospels? It is obvious that this question is of fundamental importance to Christianity, since if the gospel accounts of Jesus are largely fabrication and myth, then the impressive edifice of Christianity is standing on a very weak foundation.

Put differently, any good evidence that the stories about Jesus are mere fabrications with very little basis in reality is a big blow to the Christian religion, and seriously undermines its claim as the only God-approved route to salvation. Of course, no “genuine” Christian would cast aspersions on the gospel narratives concerning Jesus, knowing full well that unquestioned acceptance of the Nazarene as the saviour of humankind is non-negotiable.

Therefore, let us briefly examine the views of researchers on the subject-matter to help us arrive at a reasoned conclusion concerning it. Alfred Reynolds, in his highly informative work, Jesus versus Christianity, stated clearly that, going by historical sources, we know virtually nothing about Jesus. He asserts further that the New Testament cannot be regarded as a historical document since the extant copies were written by believers, in foreign countries and in Greek language, over several decades after the events they describe occurred.

Without question, the so-called synoptic gospels contradict one another to the extent that it would be a grave error to accept them all as valid historical source materials.

It is remarkable that the great Roman historians of the first and second centuries did not even mention Jesus in their works, which suggests that probably they did not know him.

Christian apologists usually cite as historical evidence of Jesus’ actual existence the statement attributed to Josephus, a Jewish priest and historian who, in A.D. 93, is supposed to have written, inter alia: “Now, there was about this time Jesus, a wise man if it be lawful to call him a man, for he was a doer of wonderful works; a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure.” But some scholars, for instance, Edward Gibbon, the English historian (1737-1794), have questioned the authenticity of this passage, alleging that it was a later fabrication and interpolation into the text of Josephus.

George Brandes, in his Jesus A Myth, puts forward the idea that Jesus never lived, and that all the legends concerning him are mere accretions of mythical qualities on a composite figure. Similarly, an outstanding scholar of Christological research, Prof. G. A. Wells, in two remarkable books, Jesus of the early Christians and Did Jesus Exist? argued persuasively that the character Jesus, as presented in the gospels, is a myth.

There is a tendency among modern theologians to reject the dogmatic components about Jesus’ birth, life, death and resurrection; demythologising him without having the courage to acknowledge or accept that the churches will collapse if their myths and mystical elements are so hastily abandoned.

Another serious scholar that expressed doubts about the actual existence of Jesus is the missionary, philosopher and historian, Albert Schweitzer (1875-1965), whose magnum opus, Quest of the Historical Jesus, is a ground-breaking work in Christological investigation.

To be continued.